Serbian composer, melographer, conductor, pianist and musical writer
Kornelije Stankovi?
Корнели?е Станкови?
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| Born
| (
1831-08-23
)
23 August 1831
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| Died
| 16 April 1865
(1865-04-16)
(aged 33)
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| Nationality
| Serbian
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| Occupation(s)
| composer, conductor, pianist, musical writer
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Kornelije Stankovi?
(
Serbian
:
Корнели?е Станкови?
,
romanized
:
Kornelije Stankovi?
,
pronounced
[k?rneːlije
st?ːŋko?it?]
; 23 August 1831 in Buda – 16 April 1865) was a
Serbian
composer, melographer, conductor, pianist and musical writer. He is notable for his four volumes of harmonized Serbian melodies, which were published in Vienna between 1858 and 1863 and are one of the most important foundations for later Serbian music.
[1]
Biography
[
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]
He was born in a bourgeois Serbian family in
Taban
, a part of
Buda
inhabited mostly by Serbs. After the death of his parents he lived with his elder sister in
Аrad
, where he went to primary school and attended two years of gymnasium. Later he moved to
Szeged
and returned to his brother's house in Taban, in order to finish school in
Pest
(1849). By a generous favour of family friends, Jelena and Pavle Riđi?ki von Skribe??e, in the year 1850 his musical education started at the Conservatory in
Vienna
. He studied harmony and counterpoint, as well as the basic piano lessons, with a court composer and prominent organist
Simon Sechter
, also the professor of
Anton Bruckner
. Fertile musical life in Vienna and instructions from Sechter marked the most significant, but also the only part of Stankovi?'s schooling. He was not able to go for musical specialization to
Russia
with his incurable disease,
tuberculosis
. He died early, in his thirty-fourth, on 4/16 April 1865 in Buda. He was buried in the Serbian cemetery in Taban. After moving this cemetery, his funeral remains were conveyed to the cemetery in Buda. In 1940, Musical society "Stankovi?" initiated their moving to the Alley of the Greats in
Novo groblje
in
Belgrade
.
Creative work
[
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]
Cultural-historical background
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]
The years of Stankovi?'s life and work were imbued by numerous political events. Among them were the
revolution 1848
,
absolutistic period of von Bach's reign
and
Crimean War
, the breakdown of Bach's regime and the abolition of the
Voivodeship of Serbia
. In Serbia this was the period of the second reign of the Serbian Prince
Mihailo Obrenovi?
. The national movement among the Serbs was established by the work on language and folk literature done by
Vuk Stefanovi? Karad?i?
. Although himself not a singer, Vuk accepted the view of
Jacob Grimm
that lyrical folk poems should be supplemented with their music settings.
Kornelije Stankovi? found an immediate model in Vuk's work. He was inspired to start an extensive work of collecting and harmonizing Serbian folk and church melodies. Intelligentsia both in the
Habsburg monarchy
and in the
Principality of Serbia
supported this pioneer work on establishing a national style in Serbian music. Among them were the Serbian Patriarch
Josif Raja?i?
, Russian priest and emissary in Vienna
Mikhail Fedorovich Raevsky
, the Serbian Prince Mihailo Obrenovi?, metropolitan of Serbia
Mihailo
and the Montenegrin
Prince Danilo I
.
Folk music
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]
Portrait of Kornelije Stankovic
Stankovi? started his melographic work in the field of folk songs and bourgeois melodies shortly after his arrival in Vienna. After the first published harmonizations, named
Serbian Folk Songs
(1851, 1853, 1854), he published four more collections (1858, 1859, 1862, 1863). Among the bourgeois songs he wrote down were also the verses of famous Serbian poets (
Jovan Jovanovi? Zmaj
,
Vasa ?ivkovi?
,
Jovan Suboti?
,
đorđe Maleti?
, Aleksandar Sandi?), published by Aleksandar Sandi? in
Ost und West
.
[2]
He arranged them as four-voice-choir compositions and miniatures or variations for piano (the most popular are the variations
?to se bore misli moje
). During 1861 and 1863 he travelled and noted down folk melodies in Serbia (?abac, Loznica, Valjevo, ?a?ak, U?ice, Kragujevac). Stankovi? dedicated his published collections of folk songs to the Montenegrin Prince Danilo I, "to Serbian ladies", Prince Mihailo Obrenovi? and to the Russian imperial emissary in Vienna,
Viktor P. Balabin
. Collections of piano compositions were dedicated to the princess
Julija Obrenovi?
and
Jelena Riđi?ki
.
Church music
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]
The first two
Liturgies
written by Stankovi? while his studying with professor Sechter did not accord with the folk tradition of church singing. Stankovi? therefore went to Sremski Karlovci (1855?1857) where, under the supervision of the patriarch Raja?i?, he put into notation the melodies of virtually the whole church repertoire. By harmonizing the great number of notated church melodies for four-voice choir, he left the rich inheritance to his Serbian people: three published books of the
Orthodox Church Chant of the Serbian People
(Vienna 1862, 1863, 1864 and Belgrade 1994, as a facsimile edition), as well as the 17 manuscript volumes with four part choral settings and five volumes with about 400 pages with traditional church chants from the
Octoich
, the General and special chant, Festal chants from the
Menaia
, the
Triodion
and the
Pentekostarion
.
1
Contribution to the work of singing societies
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]
Before Kornelije Stankovi?, the newly founded Serbian church choirs and musical societies in Austro-Hungary and the Principality of Serbia had compositions of Russian composers and less famous musicians (
Gottfried von Preyer
and
Benedict Randhartinger
from Vienna,
Francesco
and
Giuseppe Sinico
from
Trieste
,
Weiss von Berenfels
from Petrinja) on their repertoire. With the publication of Stankovi?'s work, new harmonizations of the Serbian chant became eligible for the singers and the conductors of the church choirs from Vienna, Trieste, Zadar, Kotor, Petrinja to Pan?evo, Timi?oara and Belgrade. Brief but distinctive activity of Kornelije Stankovi? as a conductor of the
First Belgrade Singing Society
(1863?1864) particularly contributed to the affirmation of the Serbian national musical creativity. As a successor of
Milan Milovuk
, Stankovi? made a significant turn over on the repertoire by introducing new harmonized Serbian folk melodies instead of foreign songs. He founded a "preparatory choir", in order to provide extra, theoretical education to his singers. He also made a plan for founding the first music school in Belgrade.
Performances
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Besides from arranging and publishing, Stankovi? also performed his transcriptions of traditional folk and church melodies as a pianist, with his friend, the painter and excellent baritone
Stevan Todorovi?
in Vienna, Pest, Buda, Belgrade, Novi Sad, Sremski Karlovci, Sombor, Pan?evo, Sremska Mitrovica, ?abac, Valjevo, Kragujevac. He also performed his own, artistic piano compositions. As a conductor, he performed with the Belgrade Singing Society, the church choir in Buda and with foreign singers in Vienna. The very special success came with two concerts of Stankovi?'s music in the famous Vienna concert hall (
Musikverein
) in 1855 and 1861.
The prefaces in his firstly published collections of folk and church songs are classics about church chant in the 19th century, pearls of writings about Serbian vocal music and folk musical inheritance.
Honours
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]
Kornelije Stankovi? on a 2009 Serbian stamp
Stankovi? was honoured to receive the Order of Saint Stanislas from the Russian tsar for his melographic and creative work. The Serbian Church Choral Society of Pan?evo, "Humanitatsverein" from Zagreb and Viennese "Musikverein", "Preodnica" and other youth societies gave him the title of an honorary member. He was respected and loved by his collaborators, acquaintances, friends and students. Stankovi?'s devoted work on preservation and nurturing the Serbian folk creativity made an important, deep trace in the Serbian musical and cultural history. His name was celebrated through numerous studies and articles, by founding musical societies and other musical institutions which were named by him. On the initiative of prof. dr Danica Petrovi?, in 1993 in Sremski Karlovci started the work of the Summer school of church chant "In memory of Kornelije".
On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Stankovi?'s birth (1981),
Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
and the Institute of Musicology SASA organized a scientific assembly "Kornelije Stankovi? and his time". Twenty years later (2006), in the organization of the Institute of Musicology SASA,
Matica srpska
and Academy of Arts from
Novi Sad
, another, international scientific assembly "Composer and his environment" was held. This time it was on the occasion of the 175th anniversary of the birth of Stankovi? and the 150th anniversary of the birth of
Stevan Stojanovi? Mokranjac
. The collection of proceedings from the first assembly (published in 1985) is, so far, the most detailed edition about Stankovi?'s life and work.
He is included in
The 100 most prominent Serbs
.
Notes
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- 1.
^
These manuscripts are kept in the Archives of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (Historical collection, No. 7888). Extensive work on transcription and redaction of composer’s manuscripts for publishing in Collected Works of Kornelije Stankovi? is in progress. This is the project led by prof. dr Danica Petrovi?, director of the Institute of Musicology SASA.
References
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External links
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